Mark Hayden Memorial - Carlow
Before I begin apologies for the grumpy picture of myself, despite having the lovely new gear I was not really looking forward to this race. I think this was a combination being tired of from the long drive and some hard training sessions I put in during the week, anyway I was here so had to give it a bash (a quitter never wins my favourite motto). This was going to be a testing circuit of 3 x 33k laps with very few places on the course to recover.I decided to play this race a bit more smart this week instead of jumping head long in and attacking, it was time to start racing and not using these events as training. As you get to know the riders throughout the season you get a good idea who are strong and who are the ones to watch. So after about 20k on the first lap I moved to the front and the first move I got into was with a strong rider, I decided to just follow him for a couple of km and see what would happen, seven more riders joined and we all started to work. I had a fairly good idea that the break would see the finish before the bunch and gave it my all, unfortunately I was not going well and felt very sluggish and midway through the second lap on a particularly difficult stretch of road my legs I could not recover and I got dropped from the break and re-joined the bunch.
Slowly but surely other riders from the break began to re-join the bunch so I wasn’t the only one who was having it hard. Five remaining riders just about held of the bunch which I was happy about as they must have been giving it a 110 percent just to stay away. One lad from the original break got caught by the bunch with about 1km to go. All I could say him at the finish was that cycling can be a cruel cruel sport sometimes. Carlow Cycling Club put on a lovely spread of sandwiches and cakes and more importantly tea, and the chat with the lads is always great after the races. I think it’s an Olympic motto “it’s the taking part that counts” and for me that’s particularly the case, it’s all about the craic and giving it a go.
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